Money.

It makes the world go round.

It controls business, and athletics is a business.

Everyone knows how it dominates professional sports. In the pros it is all about the money: ten-year, $252 million deals that dictate where a player puts up his stats and raises his children.

Money decides who wins championships. I don’t care if the Expos are in first place right now-their chances of winning the World Series are significantly less than those of the Yankees.

In the realm of professional sports, that is OK.

Professional athletes get paid for what they do, and money is a part of the game. However, while money shouldn’t dictate collegiate athletics, it does.

Remember the Fab Five-the group of five freshmen who took the Michigan Wolverines to the Final Four. Remember the purity that the Fab Five represented?

Remember how five freshmen were so gifted at the game of basketball that they could guide their team to the holy ground of the NCAA Tournament.

Isn’t it sad that something that was once so pure is now so tainted? Today, Fab Five member Chris Webber is named in a federal indictment for allegedly taking $280,000 over the course of his Wolverine career.

While $280,000 is an exorbitant amount of money, can you really blame him?

College athletes give extensive amounts of their time to their sport because that is how they are getting through school.

Athletes are often compensated for their athletic ability by getting scholarships due to their skills.

However, this isn’t enough.

Due to NCAA regulations, the average college athlete cannot receive anywhere near a full ride through school.

The average athlete is lucky to get half of his schooling paid for. And, like you or me, he is expected to pick up the rest of the bill.

College coaches are not allocated enough scholarships to adequately compensate all of their players.

Every college baseball coach across the country is given just 11.7 scholarships annually.

Those 11.7 scholarships have to be used to fill a roster of 30 players.

In men’s soccer, head coaches get 9.9 scholarships for a roster of 25. The numbers continue like this throughout men’s and women’s sports.

The athlete, however, is restricted in ways that the average student isn’t. The athlete cannot make as much money as the average student, due to work regulations that restrict the number of hours that an athlete may work.

In addition, athletes cannot accept money from friends of the family or anyone that could be considered a “friend of the program.”

Combine that with the practice and travel hours, and you have students who are struggling to survive financially.

There is only one solution-pay the athletes.

I’ll admit, at first it sounds ludicrous. What I propose isn’t a salary that can be bid on by separate schools that are recruiting young athletes. I propose a set stipend equal in amount for every athlete regardless of sport or gender.

I propose that the NCAA pay the athletes out of its annual revenues.

In business, employers pay their employees.

Without athletes, there is no NCAA.

Thus, the NCAA should compensate its employees, the athletes.

If you give the athletes enough money to go out to dinner, buy clothes or go on a date, many of the money incidents that the media so readily covers would be eliminated.

Athletes are not trying to get through college with advantages that average students don’t have. But at the same time, they should have the same opportunities to get through college that the average student has.